Western and eastern Andes in Ecuador and Eastern Andes in Peru, in humid premontane and lower montane forest, at 1600-2200 m, in pastures, coffee plantations, crop plots, and remnant forests. It forms populations of hundreds of individuals and apparently it was very abundant in the past. On the eastern Andes of Ecuador there are still extensive populations, especially of old individuals that are left standing in the middle of pastures, but regeneration is usually very abundant near forest patches left along streams.